Thursday, 21 July 2011

Franz West - Adaptive

Franz West Adaptive﻿ 2003

Viennese artist Franz West's work is driven by an interest in the use of the objects he creates, much more so than by an idea of their formal completion. His Adaptives are objects that are designed to handled, used, passed around and engaged with through forms of childish play. Through his work he blends his interests in physical engagement - inspired by the work of the Viennese Actionists - with his study of Freudian psychology and the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and an interest in disconcertingly awkard aesthetic qualities that border on the disgusting.

This particular Adaptive was produced as an edition to coincide with his 2003 show at The Whitechapel Gallery in London; it intentionally sits somewhere between being a sausage and a turd; input and output; product and waste.